February 12, 2007

Goodbye Sacagawea

Well, not really.

Many moons ago the United States mint had a brilliant idea, or so they thought. They would re-mint dollar coins. The genius, of course, was that coins lasted several times longer than paper dollar bills. It's staggering how little time paper money actually lasts in general circulation.

Once the idea was approved, an image had to be chosen and suffragette Susan B. Anthony was chosen.

The problem with those coins, of course, was their size and color which had both the feeling and general look of a quarter. While the circumference of the coin was round, the relief has a geometric design that I, even to this day, couldn't help but think would have helped the coin survived had the actual coin been minted in the unique shape. But I don't work for the mint, so enough about that.

Needless to say the Anthony Dollars weren't very popular as people kept giving away dollars in change thinking they were quarters.

Then, in 2000, a new idea was hatched to encourage people to use hard dollars. That was the Sacagawea dollar. Gold in color, the coin had the basic shape and weight as the Anthony Dollar, but of course the gold tint allowed for easy identification. In theory anyway.

For whatever reason, the Sacagawea dollar was just a little more popular than the Anthony, which isn't to say it was very popular at all.

Well, here it is, 2007, and the US Mint has announced it will start releasing (Thursday) a new hard dollar, in addition to the Sacagawea Dollar. This new dollar will be printed with four different images on it's face each year commemorating US Presidents. The idea stemmed form the popular Quarter designs that have been issued over the past few years in order of each State's entry into the Union.

The hope is, of course, that the hard dollar will catch on, but no one truly thinks it will. Cited as being too heavy and cumbersome, people have clung to the paper money as easy and convenient.

It should be noted that nearly every other major country uses, almost exclusively, hard denominations of lower currency for the specific reason of it costing less to produce in the long run.

One interesting note about this new coin is the apparent absence of two quotes which appear on all US currency. "In God We Trust" and "E Pluribus Unum" will appear, along with the issue date and mint mark, on the coins edge instead of on its face.